Fitness

How exercise resets your body clock and improves sleep patterns

Published

1 year ago

February 5, 2025

How exercise resets your body clock and improves sleep patterns

Exercise improves sleep quality and helps treat sleep disorders by regulating circadian rhythms, reducing stress, and enhancing physiological functions like melatonin production and autonomic balance.

Review: The impact of exercise on sleep and sleep disorders. Image Credit: Lysenko Andrii / Shutterstock

In a recent review article published in the journal npj Biological Timing and Sleep, researchers summarized the research on how exercise, or structured physical activity, improves sleep quality, both for those with sleep disorders and healthy individuals. They highlighted that the effects of exercise on sleep are influenced by factors such as an individual’s age, sex, fitness level, and the type, timing, and intensity of exercise.

Types of Exercise

Exercise is any form of repetitive, planned, and structured physical activity. Aerobic exercise involves activities that use the body’s large muscle groups, increasing the heart rate and the amount of oxygen a person uses. Swimming, cycling, and walking are forms of aerobic exercise.

While aerobic exercise improves cardiovascular health, anaerobic exercise, which includes sprinting and weight training, builds muscle strength and mass. Meanwhile, stretching exercises focus on improving an individual’s range of motion, but the evidence is mixed regarding whether or not they can prevent injuries.

Dynamic exercise involves moving joints and appears to have health benefits in the long term, including improved blood flow and lower blood pressure. However, static exercise occurs when muscles are activated without movement and can increase blood pressure significantly but build strength over time. The journal article also noted that these different forms of exercise may have distinct effects on sleep, with aerobic exercise generally providing the most benefits for sleep quality.

Advantages of Exercise

Exercise is critical to regulating weight, as it prevents excessive gain and can support weight loss by burning calories and balancing calorie expenditure and intake. It decreases the risk of diabetes, hypertension, and depression. Regular exercise also improves cardiovascular health, improves heart recovery, and decreases the resting heart rate.

Beyond physical benefits, exercise also improves mood and energy. It increases energy levels by improving the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to the tissues. Meanwhile, exercise improves mood, reduces stress, and enhances relaxation, particularly if it takes the form of activities that a person enjoys. Research has shown that exercise can reduce levels of cortisol, a stress hormone linked to sleep disturbances, while increasing melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep cycles.

Not getting adequate amounts of exercise has been linked to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, which have become leading causes of global mortality.

How Exercise Improves Sleep

In healthy individuals, exercise improves sleep efficiency, which is defined as the ratio of time a person spends sleeping to the total time they spend in bed.

Specifically, exercise between four and eight hours before going to bed can reduce wakefulness during sleep and help people fall asleep faster. However, the review emphasized that exercising less than four hours before bedtime may delay melatonin release and increase body temperature, potentially making it harder to fall asleep. Regular exercise also improves overall sleep quality and helps people sleep longer.

Over time, exercise improves sleep hygiene, namely the habits that help people sleep well. This leads to stable sleep-wake cycles and improves the regulation of the body’s circadian rhythms. Because exercise acts as a “zeitgeber” (a factor that influences the body’s biological clock), it can help reset disrupted circadian rhythms, particularly in individuals who experience sleep disturbances due to shift work or jet lag.

Exercise can also indirectly improve sleep by reducing stress and enhancing mood. Regular and consistent exercise reduces stress, depression, and anxiety. By reducing the heart rate, exercise calms the body, facilitating sleep. It also regulates hormones like cortisol and melatonin, which are linked to sleep patterns.

Treating Sleep-Related Disorders

Researchers have studied the benefits of exercise for alleviating sleep disorders. Exercise has psychological benefits, reducing the emotional stress and anxiety associated with disordered sleep. It can also reduce sleep-disordered breathing and improve autonomic and hormonal imbalances that worsen sleep quality.

Regarding specific sleep disorders, people experiencing insomnia can benefit from moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, which improves the onset of sleep, reduces the time spent awake, and enhances the overall sleep quality. The review also noted that exercise may be more effective when combined with sleep hygiene interventions, such as maintaining a consistent bedtime and avoiding stimulants before sleep.

Another condition that can hamper sleep quality is restless leg syndrome (RLS), a neurological condition that causes an uncontrollable urge to move the legs. Aerobic exercise can also reduce symptoms of RLS, including throbbing, aching, and itching in the legs. The study highlighted that the benefits of exercise for RLS may be due to improved blood circulation and neuromuscular function.

For people with sleep apnea, which causes breathing to stop and start repeatedly during sleep, researchers recommend combining weight loss with exercise to reduce the severity of the condition and improve functioning and wakefulness during the day. Importantly, the review found that even in the absence of significant weight loss, regular exercise can improve sleep apnea symptoms by enhancing autonomic nervous system regulation and reducing inflammation.

Conclusions

While existing studies on the relationship between exercise and sleep are promising, researchers identified ways to apply these findings and avenues for future investigations.

Long-term studies are needed to understand how different durations, intensities, and types of exercise impact sleep patterns. Diverse populations should be included to identify tailored and effective interventions for different demographic groups. The review also called for more research into the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of exercise on sleep, such as its impact on brain function and immune responses.

There is still much that is not known about the physiological mechanisms that underpin exercise’s impacts on sleep quality and circadian rhythms, particularly among those with chronic sleep disorders. The systemic and molecular effects of exercise on sleep also need more exploration.

Current research can be applied to interventions to improve the health of athletes and the general public. For athletes, optimizing sleep is crucial for recovery and performance, and the review suggested integrating personalized sleep-monitoring protocols into training programs.

Physical activity should be promoted as a non-pharmacological intervention for the general public, but clear guidelines regarding intensity, frequency, and timing should be provided for different age groups. The researchers stressed the importance of personalized exercise prescriptions that account for an individual’s age, fitness level, and existing sleep disturbances to maximize benefits.

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Fitness

I’m a strength coach – this exercise ‘looks easy’ but do it right, and you’ll have stronger obliques and better core stability

Published

11 hours ago

May 22, 2026

Press Room

I’m a strength coach – this exercise ‘looks easy’ but do it right, and you’ll have stronger obliques and better core stability

Heel touches are one of those exercises you look at and either think, ‘is that it?’ or ‘that looks nice and easy!’, depending on how much you enjoy core exercises. For those who’d rather avoid planks and crunches, this movement makes for a good alternative – and it can be done lying down.

This exercise targets the obliques, muscles that sit on the sides of our core and help stabilise the spine and support hip strength. Often underworked and underrated, these muscles are essential for everyday movements like bending down and twisting, which in turn may help prevent lower back pain.

How to do heel touches

How to Do: HEEL TOUCH – YouTube

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Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
Raise your shoulders slightly off the mat and keep your neck neutral.
Keep your lower back flat on the floor.
Alternately reach forwards to touch your heels with your hand stretched out flat.
Exhale when touching your heels and inhale when coming back.
A top tip is to do these slowly and try not to swing from side-to-side.

If you’re new to heel touches, Abby says they can be “easily modified, or progressed to make it more challenging”. You might not be able to touch your heels at first, but as your spine becomes more mobile, you will see improvements.

“Your pelvis will naturally tuck slightly as you bring the head, neck and shoulders up, but just try to move with control, keeping the pelvis stable,” she says.

How to make heel touches harder

If you’ve been doing a bodyweight Pilates workout for even a few weeks, you’ll already have good strength in your obliques and abdominal muscles. You may need to make the heel touches harder to see the benefits.

To do this, Abby says: “You could take your feet off the floor into tabletop, which will make pelvic stability more challenging, or lengthen the legs on the diagonal to create more of a challenge, or even add hand weights to increase the load.”

You could also move your heels further away from your bottom to increase the stretch, or hold each touch for two seconds.

While above we’ve suggested alternating sides for the touches, you could do all of your reps on one side before switching to the other. This will intensify the pressure on your obliques. Abby suggests aiming for 15-25 reps over three or four sets to “make it count”.

Adding in additional core exercises that complement heel touches can fire up these muscles even more. Dead bugs and the side plank are good options for targeting the obliques.

Benefits of heel touches

No equipment required: You might want a thick yoga mat to lie down on if you don’t have one already, but you don’t need any equipment to do heel touches.
May help prevent lower back pain: As this exercise strengthens the stabilising muscles in the trunk, including around the spine and pelvis, you might find you have a lower risk of back pain.
Boosts spinal mobility: Whether you do strength work in the gym or you’re a keen hiker, if you spend a lot of the day sitting down, you may benefit from better spinal mobility. This helps with bending down and other functional movements.
Improves core strength: Having a stronger core has been shown to improve balance and coordination as we age, lowering our risk of falls and other injuries.
Aids posture: Back muscles are essentially scaffolding for the spine, so having strong ones created by back exercises like heel touches helps maintain a neutral spinal position when walking and sitting down, and pulls the shoulders back, improving posture.

Fitness

Teen attitudes to exercise shape fitness years later

Published

23 hours ago

May 21, 2026

Press Room

Teen attitudes to exercise shape fitness years later

Getty Images

Teenagers who see exercise as fun, social and good for their health are significantly fitter by late adolescence than those driven by competition, pressure or fear of judgement, new research led by Flinders University shows.

Tracking more than 1,000 young people from age 14 to 17, researchers found early attitudes to physical activity strongly predict measurable aerobic fitness three years later.

The national study, using data from the long‑running Raine Study, was led by Flinders University in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame Australia, and has been published in Child: Care, Health and Development journal.

Researchers examined how teenagers’ beliefs about physical activity relate to aerobic fitness in late adolescence, measured using a standard laboratory cycling test at age 17.

The findings show that intrinsic motivations – such as enjoying physical activity, feeling healthy, keeping fit and spending time with friends – consistently matter most between the ages of 14 and 17.

Teenagers who value these factors are significantly fitter at 17 than those motivated primarily by winning, external rewards or pressure from others.

Senior author Associate Professor Mandy Plumb, a clinical exercise physiologist at Flinders University, says the results underline the importance of understanding what genuinely motivates young people.

“When adolescents see physical activity as enjoyable, social and good for their health, they are more likely to develop lasting fitness into later adolescence,” says Associate Professor Plumb, who is based at Flinders’ Rural and Remote Health NT.

Participants reported both how important they believed different outcomes of physical activity were, and how likely they thought those outcomes were to occur, including enjoyment, health benefits and appearance.

While most motivational factors remained relatively stable across adolescence, improving appearance was the only factor that increased in importance for both boys and girls by age 17.

Associate Professor Plumb says this reflects normal adolescent development.

“As teenagers get older, they become more aware of their bodies and how they are perceived by others, which is why appearance becomes more influential in later adolescence,” she says.

The study also identified clear gender differences in how motivation relates to fitness outcomes.

Boys tended to have higher aerobic fitness at 17 when motivated by competition, winning and external rewards.

Girls, by contrast, were fitter when motivated by enjoyment, feeling healthy, weight control and supportive social environments.

Associate Professor Plumb says these findings show youth sport and physical activity programs need to be more targeted.

“One‑size‑fits‑all approaches don’t work, particularly for girls during adolescence,” she says.

The research also highlights the damaging impact of negative social experiences, especially for teenage girls.

Girls who believed others would make fun of them for being physically active were significantly less fit by age 17.

“Fear of judgement can directly reduce participation in physical activity, leading to poorer long‑term fitness outcomes,” says Associate Professor Plumb.

Importantly, the study shows that attitudes formed in early adolescence influence later health outcomes – not just behaviour at the time.

“What teenagers believe about physical activity at 14 continues to shape their fitness several years later,” says Associate Professor Plumb.

The authors say the findings have clear implications for parents, schools, coaches and policymakers.

“Programs that prioritise fun, friendship and feeling healthy may be more effective than those focused on competition or performance alone,” says Associate Professor Plumb.

“Reducing pressure, bullying and overly competitive environments could help more young people stay active throughout adolescence.”

The authors say that schools and community sports organisations are well placed to apply the findings to help reverse declining physical activity levels among teenagers.

The paper, Perceptions of the Likelihood and Importance of Physical Activity Outcomes at 14 Years Affects Physical Fitness at 17 Years by Amanda Timler, Paola Chivers, Helen Parker, Elizabeth Rose, Jocelyn Tan, Beth Hands and Mandy S. Plumb was published in Child: Care, Health and Development journal. DOI: 10.1111/cch.70276

Acknowledgements: The Raine Study Gen2-14 year follow-up received funding from NHMRC (Sly et al., ID 211912), NHMRC Program Grant (Stanley et al.,ID 003209) and The Raine Medical Research Foundation. The Raine Study Gen2-17 year follow-up was funded through a NHMRC Program Grant (Stanley et al., ID 353514).

Fitness

Monroe Center hosts Health and Fitness Day for Older Americans Month

Published

1 day ago

May 21, 2026

Press Room

Monroe Center hosts Health and Fitness Day for Older Americans Month

Dave DeMille
| The Monroe News

The Monroe Center for Healthy Aging will mark Older Americans Month by hosting a Health and Fitness Day on May 27, according to a community announcement.

The event is designed to promote wellness, physical activity and a positive approach to aging, organizers said. Programming reflects the center’s philosophy that many factors influencing how people age — including nutrition, movement and mindset — are within individual control, according to the announcement.

Exercise classes and health screenings

The day begins with the Movin’ and Groovin’ exercise class at 9 a.m., followed by the EnhanceFitness class offered by the Monroe Family YMCA at 10 a.m.

Cholesterol checks will also be available, though space is limited and advance registration is required by calling 734‑241‑0404. Participants are asked to fast for eight hours before the screening, according to the announcement.

Lunch and educational presentation

A complimentary lunch will be served at 11:30 a.m. Registration is required and can be completed by calling 734‑241‑0404.

Following lunch, Chris Boudrie will present a program titled “The Pay‑Offs of Moving Your Body.” The presentation will examine the health benefits of physical activity and include a head‑to‑toe movement routine, according to the announcement.

Boudrie is a retired biology and health sciences professor at Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio, and currently works part‑time with the Monroe County Library System, and has been associated with the Monroe Center for Healthy Aging since 1987, organizers said.

This story was created by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.